


Nine to Five

by Storybook_Wolf



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Interns - Freeform, Jancy Fic Week, Journalism, Summer Jobs, s3 predictions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 01:50:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14945381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storybook_Wolf/pseuds/Storybook_Wolf
Summary: For Day 8 of the Summer of Jancy Fic Week: Season 3. My prediction of what Nancy and Jonathan might be up to, based on the on-set photos we've seen. Does this have a plot? No. Just me imagining a possible scenario based on the photos, and what we know about our intrepid duo.





	Nine to Five

‘I swear to god, Jonathan, I am going to murder that asshole and then burn this place to the ground!’

Jonathan placed a hand on his girlfriend’s shoulder, not entirely sure whether he was comforting her or trying to hold her back. Maybe a little of both. ‘Hey, I get that you’re angry, and you absolutely should be, but I think you just need to take a deep breath and—’

‘Were you about to tell me to calm down?’ Nancy asked, narrowing her eyes. ‘Because if I were you I would _not_ do that right now.’

‘I would never!’ Jonathan said. ‘I was going to say you need to keep in mind that you’re going to need a letter of recommendation from this guy at the end of the summer, and it’s going to be hard for him to write one with scissors sticking out of his neck.’

Nancy gave him a withering look. ‘I would shoot him, obviously.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘The scissors would be my contribution.’

Last semester, when Nancy had found out that the _Hawkins Post_ offered summer internships and suggested that they both apply, he’d been a little reluctant. His two objectives for the summer had been to earn some badly-needed extra cash, and to spend as much time as possible with his girlfriend. The internship was unpaid, but Nancy had pointed out that the two of them interning together would mean spending time together (even if it wasn’t the type of quality time they really wanted). And, more importantly, the internship would look impressive on college scholarship applications. Since he desperately needed a scholarship to get into a good school, that was hard to argue with.

Three weeks in, he was loving the internship. Patrick, who’d been the paper’s photo editor since the 50s, had taken Jonathan under his wing, teaching him all about how photojournalism worked and even letting him take a couple of small assignments on his own. True, he was exhausted from going straight from 8-5 at the paper to 6-midnight at the movie theatre most days, but it seemed like a fair trade-off.

Nancy, on the other hand, was having a horrible time. Working with Murray to expose the lab had gotten her excited about journalism as a career, and she’d been delighted when they’d both been accepted for internships. But right from the start, the reporter she’d been assigned to work with had been a nightmare.

Bruce was rude, sexist, obnoxious and crass. Basically, he made Murray look like Mr Rogers. He either ignored or belittled everything Nancy said, and flat-out refused to give her any real work to do. Instead, he had her filing, making coffee and taking lunch orders. It was infuriating.

So when Jonathan had seen Nancy looking like she was about to go ballistic this morning, he’d rushed over and asked Bruce is she could help him organise the photo archive.

Bruce smirked in response. ‘Of course … I’ll make sure to knock if I need you for anything,’ he’d said with a wink that made Jonathan want to vomit.

Now that they were in the archive, Nancy was venting about what a jerk her new boss was. ‘He is _horrible_! He actually just said, right to my face, that he knew the only reason I’d taken this internship was so that I could fool around with my boyfriend. Ugh! I mean, if anything it’s the other way round – you took the internship so you could be near _me_.’

Jonathan was slightly offended at that. ‘Hey, that’s not true! I’m here to learn more about photography and improve my college application. Getting to hang out with you is just a bonus.’ He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. ‘I’m sorry your boss is an asshole.’

She grimaced. ‘Thanks. I mean, I could put up with him being a sexist jerk if I was at least learning a lot. But he won’t let me do any real work, and I’m not going to pick anything up just from being around him, because he’s a total hack. Did you see his article this morning about Penney’s coming to the mall? He basically just reprinted their press release, without investigating or questioning _anything_. Lazy sack of shit.’

She sat down on the edge of one of the benchtops as Jonathan started to sort through a box full of contact sheets and film strips labelled _June 1982_.

‘Actually, you know what?’ she asked, suddenly brightening. ‘He’s not being lazy, just crooked. The mall has been the paper’s biggest advertiser for the last couple of months, so he wouldn’t print anything that would make them look bad.’

_My girlfriend the conspiracy theorist_ , thought Jonathan with a smile. ‘Oh is that right, Woodward and Bernstein? Does it go all the way to the top?’

She leaned back on the bench and stretched out one leg, nudging his shin with her shoe. ‘Don’t mock me, Byers, maybe it does! The mayor could be ignoring all the protests about the mall because the developers are … I don’t know, financing his re-election campaign or something.’ She stopped for a moment, frowning. ‘Hey, how much do you think he knew about the lab?’

Jonathan paused, a pile of proof sheets gripped in his hand. ‘I … I never really thought about it. But I mean, it would make sense for him to have known _something_ was going on. It took more than just the people working there to hide everything that was happening. We know there were State Troopers helping them when they retrieved Will’s fake body, so they definitely had outside help. I guess it would make sense if the mayor or someone like that was helping them hush things up. It might explain why those weird tunnels Hop found last year just got filled in with no explanation. And why the mayor tried to downplay the story when the truth about what happened to Barb broke last year.’

Nancy looked triumphant. ‘Who’s crazy now?’ she asked. ‘It makes total sense. And if this paper had any _real_ investigative journalists, they’d be digging into it right now.’

‘Except they do have one.’

Nancy frowned. ‘What? No, Bruce is completely useless. He can’t even organise his own lunch, let alone investigate a major government cover-up.’

Jonathan crossed the small space between them and cupped her face with his hands. ‘I meant you, dummy. The paper’s 17-year-old, unpaid, temporary investigative journalist.’

She brought her hands up to circle his wrists and smiled up at him affectionately. ‘Thank you, _dummy_. But so far I haven’t even been allowed to write so much as a classifieds ad. I very much doubt they’d let me take on an actual story.’

‘Since when has Nancy Wheeler waited for permission?’ Jonathan asked. ‘Patrick wants me to go to City Hall this afternoon and photograph some new wildflower mural they’re unveiling. Why don’t you come with me, and we’ll poke around and see what we can find out?’

Nancy grinned.

**Author's Note:**

> There wasn't a way to integrate it into this brief, Jancy-focused fic, but one of my biggest wishes for s3 is that Karen Wheeler finally gets drawn into the main storyline and figures out that Weirdness is Afoot. I love Karen, and I love Cara Buono - they both deserve more than a borderline pedophilia 'romance'.  
> Oh, and Billy should get killed off. Early on - like, episode 2.


End file.
